Life
by Ink Reservoir
Summary: Sometimes he wondered how he ended up being L at all.


**Disclaimer: Death Note isn't mine.**

**Life**

He stared out the window and wondered how of all the places his life could have gone, he ended up here. That's not to say he was particularly fond of what he saw outside the window. He really didn't like what he saw anywhere, to be honest. He turned his eyes back to the papers in his hands and sighed, sifting through them.

Seventeen people missing and a kidnapper who demanded at least three million dollars with an almost foolproof way of getting it. Some lunatic going around shooting people as they went about their day in the name of the Unnamed God, which didn't even make sense. Thirty million dollars stolen from various bank accounts of important figures around the world, excluding himself for now.

He dropped the stack of papers on the ground again. There was a phone on the floor next to them. If someone looked through the call history, they would see that he had dialed Wammy's House and hung up before the phone started to ring. Further to the right, fifteen action figures were standing, illustrating a scene of a kidnapping, session of torture, and eventual murder. A sudden surge of anger flickered through the boy(man, though he kept forgetting), and he knocked them over with a swift motion of his arm. He missed two of them and a third tottered but did not fall. Frustrated, he slumped against the floor so he was lying on his back.

To put it simply, Nate River was sick of his life. Tired of being expected to exert the majority of his effort for things he didn't care for. Tired of the constant pressure that he had been put under from the moment he stepped foot into Wammy's to today, when it was bright and sunny outside and he didn't have the energy to close the curtains. At first, it had been interesting, focusing his energies into defeating the person who had befallen L, whom he had considered up until then indestructible. Now, though, his curiosity had been squelched and his motivation shrunken to the point it was almost nonexistant.

He didn't want to be L anymore.

He wasn't surprised when that thought drifted across his mind. If anything, it felt right.

He didn't want to be L anymore.

He didn't want to be L anymore.

Near did not want to be L.

He felt a twitch of guilt and couldn't fathom why. It wasn't as though he should want to be L. He was not L and he was nothing like L. He had none of L's obsessive love for justice and mystery. He wasn't a lover of thrill and adventure as L was. He harboured no jealousy at all whatsoever for those who led normal lives. His mind didn't spark with excitement at the prospect of something new to do. If anything, it recoiled away from the idea.

Near was different. He enjoyed the things that he enjoyed and cared not for anything else. He liked to play with his toys to his heart's content and invent stories in his mind. He liked to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling and do nothing else for hours at a time. He liked to call Rester on the phone to play mind games and hang up whenever he wanted. Being L gave him the freedom to do that as he had the money to continue to survive as necessary, but it also restricted him from it. Solving cases wasn't a passion, it was just something he had to do so that he was able to do what he really wanted.

Sometimes he wondered how he ended up being L at all.

How had he gotten to that orphanage, the orphanage that took him by the hand and led him to his destiny without bothering to ask him whether or not he wanted to come? And why hadn't he pushed the hand away?

Perhaps a lifetime of being told you were right for something could cause you to believe it.

Near's thoughts drifted to how one day someone was to succeed him, and he realized he had never thought about it before. He had never really considered that he would die and there would be a new L after him. That the code they had chosen for themselves would become meaningless and left in the dust like "Near" was, because he wasn't Near anymore and had no reason to pretend he was, no matter what he thought of himself as.

What if L wasn't even the original L? What if the man he had looked up to and respected had just been another successor who eventually lost his identity?

For a moment, Near wanted to shiver. It was a mark of his surmountable self control that he remained completely composed with thoughts like that crossing his mind.

What if the new L didn't want to be L either, and every L there was was only L because they couldn't imagine being anyone else? Were the children at Wammy's House under the impression that the real L never died, that Near was the original L too?

His self-control was lost and he was shaking for a reason he couldn't even understand. It shouldn't have such an effect on him. It wasn't just, and it wasn't fair, it was merely the way things were. He dug his nails into the carpet and focused on breathing evenly. There. All better.

He gave the pile of papers another reluctant glance and wanted with all of his being to just pick up the phone, call Roger, and tell him he quit.

To put a stop to all of this.

He picked up the papers. There were cases to solve.


End file.
